I don't have sympathy for the Turkey Lady in this instance, but in general the terms of the donation are totally up to the donor. If Turkey Lady was donating a Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner to the auction, it doesn't matter that it might not work for everyone. But I agree that the terms could have been made more clear, and that OP's sister shouldn't have assumed the receipt she received could be redeemed for anything at the deli, at any time.

I've participated in many a charity auction and I'm afraid I've never seen the expiration dates listed in the description for certificate items when one exists. I've also been the winner of items that have expiration dates and it's totally up to me to read through everything carefully as soon as I receive the prize. If people haven't wanted the item after they won the bid and inspected it, right at the time they pay is when they should decline and let the organization offer it to the next highest bidder.

The last auction I attended a few weeks ago, the grand prize was two tickets to the Rose Bowl, and 2 tickets to the Rose Parade -- no "expiration date" was given. Now, one can try to argue that the Rose Bowl is the name of the stadium and the two tickets should be for any game played there at any time, but a reasonable person (especially in Southern California) should be able to realize that THE Rose Bowl is a rather specific game played only on 1 day a year and if they aren't used because someone didn't look at the date, that's on them.

Logged

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." — Douglas Adams

RegionMom, that reminds me of people who donated use of a condo for a week in FLorida. They had certain weeks it was/wasn't available and that was made clear before bidding started, as was the cap on the number of peple who could stay there. There were pictures of the place and they made it clear the deal had to be used within one year.

Then the donor became anxious that the dinner not be "wasted", and also wanted to know that her donation was actually used.

It's not her business to be "anxious" or wanting "to know that her donation was actually used."

Her relationship with the dinner stopped the second that she donated it. If the OP's sister wanted to go get the dinner and feed it to the cats behind her house, it was the OP's sister's right to do so. The donor had no right to the dinner after she left the item with the church auction.

This. Turkey Lady had no right to the dinner at all. Heck, if the OP's sister wanted to let it rot at the shop that's her choice because it's *her dinner*. Taking something that isn't yours is stealing, even if the other person wasn't using it ("But waiter, she'd gone to the bathroom and her food was going cold! I couldn't see it go to waste!").

I don't think I would demand reparations, since the expiry date had passed anyway, but I would certainly let the church know about it. If I were new to an area and considering churches something like this would *definitely* turn me off a church and I would probably let other newcomers considering churches know about it too. It's probably lucky for the church that it happened to a member of their congregation and not an outsider.

Turkey Lady may have set her own restrictions that no one else knew about, and the church has no idea she changed it. Perhaps she collected from other businesses, and other buyers are also now frustrated by her imposed restrictions.

Yeah, I can just see it. "Sorry, ma'am, the donor specified that the sweater had to be purple, size 14, and embellished with silver bows, and she came and picked it up last Tuesday."

RegionMom, that reminds me of people who donated use of a condo for a week in FLorida. They had certain weeks it was/wasn't available and that was made clear before bidding started, as was the cap on the number of peple who could stay there. There were pictures of the place and they made it clear the deal had to be used within one year.

And that is exactly why I said sister should bring the matter to the attention of the auction organizer. They need to be aware of a misunderstanding on the terms when the sister placed her bid so they can be prudent in verifying that all pertinent information is easily available to bidders.

It very well good have been written in HUGE BOLD LETTERS that value expires by November X and sister just completely missed it. But my guess was that it was not easily viewable. Any auction organizer wants winning bidders to be happy so they return next year. And most would have gone out of their way to make sure that an item with that short of an expiration was clearly identified as such.

With the silent auctions I have been involved in, we photocopy the front and back of any giftcards, certificates,etc., and place them on the table where the person bidding can see exactly what they are getting. We also try to note any restrictions so they buyer will be aware of what they are getting.

As I was thinking about this today, we actually did have a situation similar to this at one of our auctions a few years ago. One of our members asked the business her husband works for to donate an item. They business actually had season tickets to the local NFL team games that they gvae to clients and the business owner decided to donate a pair of those to our group (very generous!). He asked one of his employees to take care of getting us the tickets. The employee gave our group the tickets, and then called the stadium to say the tickets were lost and asked for a replacement pair. When the people who bought them showed up, they were told the tickets had already been scanned and they weren't allowed to enter. Cue them calling the auction organizer (which was not me that year!). Fortunately, the person who bought the tickets was a member or our group and was a good sport about what happened. We refunded him immediately and apologized repeatedly. We also let the person who donated the tickets know what happened which is why we know why the tickets didn't work. They employee who did it was fired. (Maybe I need to add this to the Professional Darwinism thread).

All that to say, the person who bought the item has a right to get what they paid for. As someone who is involved in charitable auctions, my organization's reputation is on the line if something like that happens. I think it's great if you want to donate to the cause, but most people who attend auctions go because they want to buy cool stuff hopefully at a discount.

I think the deadline and the small print and the receipt are all a red herring here. What matters is this woman took something that she had no right to take. I say tell the church and let them deal with it.

The fact that the Turkey Dinner was to be redeemed by mentioning TL's name, as well as TL still retaining the original receipt, TL owned the Turkey Dinner. The deli was in no way at fault, as the origin" receipt and TL's name was used to get the Turkey Dinner.

However, since the intent of the Turkey Dinner was to sell it by auction, and Sister did in fact pay, TL should have given the original receipt. TL did this on purpose. If TL wanted to keep a record of the transaction, TL could have kept the copy but give the original receipt.

It is clearly an act of fraud of TL.

If the prize was something else, such as a weekend at a bed-and-breakfast, and donor had no right to give that prize (for whatever reason), or had redeemed that prize instead of auction winner, that is a fraud.

I say tell the auction committee what happened. If they cannot force TL to pay Sister, then Sister should consider going public and/or making a police report. And then suing TL. Sister should tell the TL and auction committee this.

Afterwards, the auction committee may consider to ban such future scams, and insist GC with no strings attached in their future auctions.

My sister shared this with me and I was just curious what others thought of what happened with this situation.

She lives in an area where there seem to be a lot of church charity auctions. She went to one such auction that was not for the church she attends (possibly important later). (background: She was going to her SIL's for Thanksgiving dinner, and then she was hosting my family on Saturday so the cousins could all see each other.) One of the items up for auction was a family turkey dinner from the deli of a grocery store in town, valued at about $50. She bid on it (presumably for the $50, although I'm not entirely sure) and won it. Generally, these things are pretty generic (like they say 'turkey dinner', but they really mean a value of $X that can be used for anything in the deli within a month or two). So my sister thought she might be able to trade it in for chicken or something else, and we could all eat it when we came to her house on Saturday. After she got the info, she saw that the auction was very specific; it HAD to be a turkey dinner, and it HAD to be picked up between Monday and Thursday. Well, she waited until Thursday and called the deli to say she was going to be picking it up. She had a coupon of sorts and described it to the manager. The deli manager didn't know what she was talking about. Even he said that typically, people just get a $50 gift card in cases like this. She faxed the coupon to the deli manager so he could see what she was talking about.

The manager called her back, and this is where it gets a bit wild. Apparently, my sister's turkey dinner had been picked up already by someone else! The manager said that some other lady had been calling all day, wondering if the dinner (my sister's dinner) had been picked up yet. When it hadn't been picked up by a certain time, this other lady came and picked it up herself!

My sister's take on it was that this lady is the one who donated the item to the church auction (I don't know if she knew this for sure or was supposing). The other lady was counting on nobody picking up the dinner, basically hedging her bets, hence the specificity of the type of dinner and the short time frame for picking it up. That's why it wasn't done in the 'typical' way (the $50 gift card), b/c then she'd have no way of potentially getting it back if she'd just donated the gift card. So my sister was out her money AND her dinner.

I asked what my sister was going to do. She hadn't done anything yet b/c she was really busy on Friday. Personally, I think a bit of public shaming would be in order, and that my sister should call the church and explain the situation, and request that they ask that the Turkey lady actually provide to my sister what she donated, or give my sister back her money. Perhaps my sister could overlook the large 'donation' to the church and just write it off if it were her own church, but this is a different one. I thought if the Turkey lady was going to going to try to get the goodwill for her actions AND eat my sister's dinner, then she should be called out on her actions. And to do this to a church? Really?

So, what do you all think of that? I thought it was pretty shady and conniving of Turkey lady, personally.

So I went to the original post and struck out the extraneous portion, this helps me, does it help anyone else?

Sis bid on and won a turkey dinner that had to be picked up by xx time on Thursday. When she went to pick it up, it had already been picked up. Sis does not know who picked it up.

The deli owes her a turkey dinner. If deli figures out who picked her dinner up they can take it up with that person. If sis gets no satisfaction from the deli then she needs to voice her unhappiness with the church where she bought the dinner. They can either refund her money or say too bad, so sad and Sis can avoid donating, participating in an auction there again. The church can then find out themselves what has happened - at least then they would know not to accept donations from said deli or church member again.

The bottom line is Sis did not get her turkey dinner she won in an auction from a church. If this were an auction on Ebay or any other public/private auction she would still be owed her turkey dinner. Yes, I agree, it's horrible that this has happened to a church but they are not exempt from providing what they auction off. The donor should probably be contacted so that she knows what happened, she may have an explanation or may be horribly embarassed about the incident and ASSUMING it was her, she may want to make good on the donation or she may be a horses patoot and not - either way I think the church should be informed about the incident.

The deli owes her a turkey dinner. If deli figures out who picked her dinner up they can take it up with that person. If sis gets no satisfaction from the deli then she needs to voice her unhappiness with the church where she bought the dinner. They can either refund her money or say too bad, so sad and Sis can avoid donating, participating in an auction there again. The church can then find out themselves what has happened - at least then they would know not to accept donations from said deli or church member again.

The reason I don't think the deli is responsible is that I don't think they ever knew it was an auction prize. All they knew was that Turkey Lady ordered a turkey dinner, behaved oddly by calling about it a lot, and then came to pick it up with the receipt she'd gotten when she initially paid. They probably had many orders like this during the run-up to the holiday. The deli had no idea they were supposed to reserve it for someone else and that Turkey Lady was being sneaky. If Turkey Lady had actually told them it was a prize, they'd have done their usual procedure of making it a gift card.

After she got the info, she saw that the auction was very specific; it HAD to be a turkey dinner, and it HAD to be picked up between Monday and Thursday. Well, she waited until Thursday and called the deli to say she was going to be picking it up.

Fifth, the deli manager said that the lady had been calling all during that week, not just on Thursday as I thought, inquiring as to whether or not the dinner had been redeemed. So that kind of says to me (and my sister) that she was really looking for the dinner to not be claimed. When Thursday rolled around, she used her original receipt and went and claimed it. Deli manager mentioned the last name of the person who claimed it and it was the same last name that was listed as the donor on the info that my sister got.